thread: 2011-05-11 : The Un-frickin-welcome
On 2011-05-31, Christian Griffen wrote:
I know I brought this up before, but let me reiterate: as someone who's GMed many "freeform" games (which in this case simply meant the GM determines the outcome of all actions), I swear I will never do that again without putting in place some mediating cues that take the responsibility off my shoulders. The part upthread, where David says he and his friends would have blamed the GM for making too harsh a call absent the rules forcing him to? That's exactly why. I've been there so many fucking times, where it comes down to a) making an unwelcome call and get blamed, or b) making a boring call. It leads to utterly safe and boring play.
The reason that mediating cues work better for me than principles is related to this: calls based on principles are subject to interpretation, which raises the fear of being blamed. Give me a clear "if you do this, roll a die to see how badly you get hurt doing it" any day.
